Must We Allow Employees to Take Paid Time Off (PTO) When They Request to Use Some of Their PTO Allowance for a Vacation?

No. There is no law requiring companies to provide employees with PTO. Granting or not granting PTO is a matter of policy and contract, which the company should control. Thus, companies normally have the ability to control the accrual and use of employees’ PTO, unless they have divested themselves of that power by giving the ability to employees. That said, companies may still get in trouble by discriminatorily treating certain employees differently than others with regard to who gets time off and who does not, but as a general rule companies have the ability to set the terms and use of PTO.

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